“This I regard as history’s highest function, to let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds.”

They make solitude, which they call peace.

Legions and fleets are not such sure bulwarks of imperial power as a numerous family

Victor and vanquished never unite in substantial agreement.

All enterprises that are entered into with indiscreet zeal may be pursued with great vigor at first, but are sure to collapse in the end.

In all things there is a kind of law of cycles. [Lat., Rebus cunctis inest quidam velut orbis.]

Greater things are believed of those who are absent.

The wicked find it easier to coalesce for seditious purposes than for concord in peace.

Candor and generosity, unless tempered by due moderation, leads to ruin.

People flatter us because they can depend upon our credulity.

One who is allowed to sin, sins less

Posterity gives to every man his true honor. [Lat., Suum cuique decus posteritas rependet.]

To show resentment at a reproach is to acknowledge that one may have deserved it.

Other men have acquired fame by industry, but this man by indolence.

Zealous in the commencement, careless in the end.

Whatever is unknown is magnified.

Seek to make a person blush for their guilt rather than shed their blood.

One has to work for years and decades, to conduct negotiations.

I will do my best to reduce the price of oil to expand the life span of oil at least for two decades or three decades.

Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

In other places, where the car has been king for many decades, it takes more time.

The capitalist system is not delivering those decade-after-decade increases it promised.

The teacher that I was for decades, and that I still am in a certain way, wondered what was meant by the word education.

True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, and writing what deserves to be read.

We understand that the world is very complex and that change doesn’t happen overnight. But you’ve now had more than three decades of blah blah blah. How many more do you need?